Hemodynamic Differences in Children with Dichotic Listening Deficits: Preliminary Results from an fMRI Study during a Cued Listening Task

Abstract

Functional magnetic resonance images were acquired while children with and without dyslexia identified incongruous words embedded within fairy tale segments in a quasidichotic listening task. All children produced greater activation in the left hemisphere than in the right hemisphere during the binaural separation listening task. Children with dyslexia, who had a higher incidence of a dichotic left ear deficit from prescanning behavioral tests, produced fewer hits and more misses than control children while monitoring their left ears in the scanner. Control children produced stronger left hemispheric activation for ipsilateral left ear input than right hemispheric activation for ipsilateral right ear input, but ipsilateral activation patterns in children with dyslexia were symmetrical. Children with dyslexia who monitored their right ears first produced the lowest left hemispheric activation overall, suggesting that priming of the right ear may have inhibited the ability of children with a left ear deficit to adequately identify target words presented toward their left ears while in the scanner.